Farewell, Mark Drakeford

Mark Drakeford has announced he will step down as first minister of Wales in March.

It wasn't unexpected. He signalled some time ago that he would resign around the mid point of the current Welsh parliament and he's kept his word.

However, while I have enormous sympathy for someone whose wife died suddenly (in January this year), I can't say I am sorry to see him go.

Thankfully, talk of banning smoking outside pubs and in town centres in Wales, first proposed by Drakeford in 2018, appeared to be derailed by Covid and other more pressing issues, but you could never be sure it was off the agenda as long as he remained in office.

My worry, as I wrote at the time, was that:

Tobacco control is almost a nationalised industry in Wales and the Welsh media make little or no effort to provide any sort of balance in their reports.

If you live in other parts of the UK what happens in Wales also tends to go under the radar, which in this instance would be a huge mistake.

If Wales adopts Drakeford’s proposal the policy will almost certainly be considered by the Scottish government. Even in England there will be some local authorities who want to give it a go.

Plans to extend the smoking ban to outdoor areas may have been thwarted, or postponed, but you didn't have to look far to find further evidence of Drakeford's nannying – some might call it authoritarian – streak.

This, after all, was the man who in 2016 came within one vote of banning the use of e-cigarettes in enclosed public places in Wales. Six years later he was still bemoaning it (First Minister Mark Drakeford says failing to push through vaping bill is one of his biggest regrets).

However, it's only two months since he suggested that vapes should be available on prescription only, and who can forget it was his government that recently introduced a 20mph speed limit in every town and village in the country.

We're not off the hook yet, though, because one of the two 'early front runners' to replace him is Vaughan Gething, the former minister for health in Wales, of whom I wrote in July 2020:

We already knew that minister for health Vaughan Gething wanted to extend the smoking ban to outdoor areas in Wales because he said so in a written statement on June 24:

"I remain committed to making more of Wales’ public spaces smoke free and intend to progress work in the next Senedd term to extend the smoking ban to outdoor areas of cafes and restaurants and city and town centres."

If I'm honest I sensed that Gething – who is currently minister for the economy – wasn't in the same mould as Drakeford when it came to banning things, but you can never tell.

Perhaps he was just doing his master's bidding but politicians, as we have discovered, love to leave a legacy and smokers are an easy target.

Devolved governments also have limited powers, and tackling smoking is one of few areas where they can 'make a difference', especially if it's in the name of health.

In short, it's far too early to rejoice at the resignation of one first minister when we don't know who his successor is, or what their agenda might be.

My advice? Watch this space.